Paolo Serra - The MeerKAT Fornax Survey: ubiquitous HI tails and clouds in the Fornax cluster

The MeerKAT Fornax Survey: ubiquitous HI tails and clouds in the Fornax cluster

by Paolo Serra (INAF - Cagliari)

Abstract: I will show first science results from the MeerKAT Fornax Survey. Our goal is to perform a detailed study of the nearby Fornax galaxy cluster in order to understand how galaxies lose their cold gas and stop forming stars in the densest regions of the cosmic web. We are doing so through very deep (down to ~1e+18/cm^2) and high resolution (up to ~ 1kpc and 1 km/s) MeerKAT observations of HI gas in a 1x2 Mpc^2 region centred on the Fornax cluster.
Our survey started in October 2020 and is now 25% complete. These first data focus on the central region of the Fornax cluster and reveal for the first time the ubiquitous presence of streams and tails of HI. Some of the HI is clearly being removed from Fornax galaxies as they interact with one another, with the intra-cluster medium and/or with the large-scale gravitational potential. I will elaborate on these results in combination with several, recent observations of Fornax at other wavelengths (e.g., ALMA, ESO/MUSE and VST).
The new MeerKAT data paint a completely new picture of the Fornax cluster. They convincingly demonstrate to what extent a significant leap forward in sensitivity and resolution can impact our understanding of astrophysical systems.

Contact:  Alex Saro, Gabriella De Lucia

Join in person in the Library seminar room (Castello Basevi - reservation required, please book here below) or remotely on meet.google.com/zfy-mtgs-tpc